Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/167

Rh pass over their property. ... No railroad of greater importance than a mere switch ever has been or ever can be built without invoking the sovereignty of the Government in its behalf" (page 111). Under such circumstances, where a man's neighbors have decided that they want a railway, the law—so far from taking anything from anybody—simply steps in and applies the well-known maxims that a man must use his own so as not to injure his neighbors; and that, in civilized communities, every citizen yields a fraction of his rights for the general good and society of all. To enable the railway to enforce the general consent, it is convenient to apply these maxims against the recalcitrant citizen by the fiction that the Government endows the railroad company—for the emergency and for the emergency only—with a portion of its own (the Government's) right to take the property of its subjects in cases of necessity (as for the public good in times of peace, or the public defense in time of war, etc.). This force is applied, however, not at the expense of the Government, nor even at the expense of the recalcitrant and unpleasant citizen who will not accord with his neighbors, but at the sole expense of the railway company. The result is that, instead of the citizen suffering for his obduracy and obstinacy, he is actually rewarded—since he ultimately receives a greater value for his land, without being mulcted in any of the expenses of the taking. So far as he is concerned he has lost nothing by his contumacy; whereas the railway, by his contumacy and without fault on its part, has been put to the costliest plan of acquiring the land. For the purchase of any strip of land, at almost any price, is invariably cheaper than the process of condemnation by private "view," which, both in time and money, is by all odds the very costliest known method of obtaining a railroad's right of way. These "views" are, by statutory requirement, made by persons of the vicinage, who, in estimating their neighbor's land, estimate their own; as individuals it can be readily imagined they are not over-solicitous to save the corporation expense, nor to estimate at all without liberal compensation to themselves for their own services: and the result can be readily computed. The laws of eminent domain, as appertaining to railway companies, and their operation in cases of land condemnation, are too technical to be elaborated here. But it may be said, as a matter of fact, that their application ceases with the single act of the acquirement of land. Nor is the power of the Government over the citizen ever, except in this solitary instance, exercised by the railway company from the beginning to the fine and term of its career; and, moreover, the grant itself is not only not against public policy and interest, but is directly in favor of the public: being positively granted to the railways as against themselves rather than in their favor, so far as a possible question between the railways and the public can possibly arise.

What is known as the police power of railways, which is derived